Veterans Day programs will be held in Gloucester and Mathews counties on Sunday and Monday, beginning with a service hosted by Middle Peninsula Detachment #1317 of the Marine Corps League. At 3 p.m. this Sunday, Nov. 10 (which is also the Marine Corps’ 249th birthday), the local unit of the Marine Corps League will welcome all to the program at the Gloucester Veterans Memorial Wall. The afternoon’s guest speaker will be Petty Officer 2nd Class and local business owner Richard French. French was a sailor stationed in the Mediterranean off the coast of Lebanon at the time of the Oct. 23, 1983 bombing of the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut. When the bombing happened, he was one of those charged with loading the wounded and dead Marines into a makeshift hospital into a hangar onboard the ship. The attack killed 307 people: 241 U.S. and 58 French military personnel, six civilians and the two attackers. The 220 Marines who died represent the deadliest single-day death toll for the Marine Cor...